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| Gamer in... Tokyo! | // article |
| I'll get straight into things this time around, with a nice juicy helping of House of the Dead 4. Now I'm a big fan of the old HOTD series, and have really enjoyed the effort that has been made with the last two outings to update and innovate and I can safely say that HOTD 4 does not disappoint, but where HOTD 3 left behind some of the features of previous instalments, HOTD 4 is an excellent juxtaposition of old and new. Things kick off with our main man from HOTD 3, nonchalant as ever it takes the poor guy a while before he realises that the shit's hit the fan once again and his dippy sidekick spends plenty of time admiring the ground and muttering in a forlorn manner about destruction and the ignorance of man. Fortunately, no sooner has our friend finally decided that things are getting pretty hairy, than a bunch of the living impaired beat down the door and proceed to stumble in an expedient manner towards our endangered duo. Its around about here that you kind of twig to the graphics and at a pace similar to that of our heroes you realise that actually, they looked pretty damn good, and that these zombies are really rather nice graphically. Admittedly, its not on a par with the graphics on the Xbox 360, but you'll notice the difference compared to the last rendition and indeed, compared to other arcade machines, there's some serious detail and a lot of healthy grit and wear, zombies look gory as you like (even if their jeans are pretty flat against their stomachs) and the main characters look like they've been through hell. Well, the female character doesn't look quite so bad, more like she just had a tough day, perhaps nearly broke a nail or something, but her companion is definitely having a tough time of things. Moving on, you'll remember that HOTD 3 introduced you to a well weighted, pump action shotgun for your zombie fragging fun and why not, you're fighting zombies, shotguns are the business, but it looks like someone wasn't happy with that, so now you get an Uzi. At first this seemed a bit of a bad idea, it didn't feel right, but soon enough you really get into the swing of being able to lay waste to hordes of shuffling lobotomy victims and obviously being an Uzi, its far lighter than HOTD 3's shotgun, thus saving your arms from self-amputation. Or at least, you might think. Remember I mentioned innovation and all that? Well this time around, you don't just get slapped silly by zombies, sometimes they grab you and attempt a kind of dancing bear hug. When this happens, you can't shoot, but instead have to fling the gun around, shaking it as hard as you can, to ‘shake off' your would-be companion. This not only kills your arms, but makes HOTD 4 ten times more fun than anything I've played at an Arcade for a long time, if the sheer number of enemies you can lay waste to doesn't get your fun meter going, then the gun shaking will, because you really get caught up in the act and plenty of people can be heard sounding like they're actually desperately trying to shake a real zombie from themselves. Similarly humorous is watching new players stare dumbfounded at the screen, and occasionally make half hearted shaking attempts. However, the fun doesn't stop there, the Uzi carries a second button, and you carry three grenades, that's right, as if just blasting those zombie freaks wasn't enough, you can blow them up, and I have to say, those explosions are very satisfying indeed, especially because you even get a bit of zombie splatter going on, along with their somewhat surprised faces being ripped apart before your eyes. From there on out things are pretty standard HOTD fare, good clean zombie shooting fun, with plenty of new stuff thrown in, but I did mention a return to the old, didn't I? Well, HOTD 2 saw you shooting the occasional box to find goodies, something HOTD 3 did away with. But the good people at Sega have thrown that little feature back in, if with something of a tweaking to make it a bit more of a rarity. It's not much, but it's a feature I'm very glad to have back, because although you can make the first act to the boss with little to no life loss, it does reward the sharp eyed player and certainly helps save you a little cash here and there. But HOTD 4 was not my only gaming outing of late, I'm in Tokyo here, there are arcades everywhere! Why, just yesterday I was playing Mario Kart, with my face behind the Mario cap and moustache, and Ms Pacman close on my tail! Even better however was a chance to play Outrun 2. Now, if you visit UK:R you'll know they love this little game, and frankly, though it looked interesting, I never saw any great draw. How ignorant I was. I'm abysmal at racing games, but damn if Outrun 2 isn't fun, and pretty too, plus Heart Attack Mode. I shouldn't need to say anything else, those three words should have you running to buy the game right now, but if you're still not convinced, think fun and unique, innovative and humorous, things to make you smile, things to make you really engage with a game and you'll be getting there. That's it really, the coming week sees me travelling around Kanto to Kyoto and Osaka where I will be doing plenty of sight seeing and photography, before flying home to England, where it's a national event if it snows anywhere near the South. Therefore, expect no more from me till after I am home and can write up a final piece, if the guys at News0r haven't decided by then to axe this article because it actually bores people to death! In the meantime some things to remember about Japan;
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